


Bang Away, Lulu

by Ludwiggle73



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Historical References, M/M, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Songfic, Transgender, Unhappy Ending, transtalia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 19:50:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17966930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludwiggle73/pseuds/Ludwiggle73
Summary: The story of how two bright lives went out like a light.[Doomed FrUK.]





	Bang Away, Lulu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kitty (Katatafish)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katatafish/gifts).



> Hope the use of pronouns/names wasn't too confusing in this... Also, do single-quotes make prose look old-fashioned? They do to me xD
> 
> Oh and by the way, if y'all like gorgeous 1920s glitter and grit, go read Kitty's 'Under My Window' - there can never be enough 1920s AUs, my lovelies, and she wields the era with envious poise. This is me trying to make something that divine :P

‘I think you’d best tell me what happened tonight, Miss.’

Arthur’s eyes haven’t focused since he saw Francis fly. A half-turn pirouette before thudding on the tacky floor, graceful even in death. No great explosion of blood as one might think, just that red rose blooming across the ruffled bodice of his gown. No sequins and feathers tonight, as if he’d known his fate and thought modesty more suitable for the afterlife. Heaven or hell, Arthur wonders? He’s never believed. Perhaps this is his fatal flaw, the lack of faith in the unseen. Fatal for Francis, in any case.

‘This is your only chance to save your skin, Miss Kirkland. I suggest you take it.’

Arthur uncrosses his legs beneath the rickety interrogation table. The tiles are worn beneath it; he hears crunchy crackles, like broken glass, under his heels. He’s still in his tappers, too, still wearing all his gaudy vestments for the show. Pinstripe, ribboned homburg, green carnation drooping half-crushed on his lapel. Wilde weeps, he thinks ruefully. He doubts Wilde would approve of him at all, carnation or no.

‘Well?’ The bobby taps his nut cracker again and again on his open palm, a clammy metronome. He’s a homely cuss, as the Americans would say. Waxed mustache melting in the heat off the cursing radiator. Sandbags weighing down his eyes. Abused trilby longing to be put out of its misery.

Arthur doesn’t consider his cursed skin worth saving, but he is vindictive. Another fatal flaw, he hopes. What happened tonight was wrong, and he will see it righted as much as possible. The dead can’t be returned, but the deserving can join them.

‘I’ll tell you,’ he says finally. He was wet behind the ears last time he was this hoarse after only one show, but screaming over the corpse of your only love is something one can never train for. ‘It was Lovino Vargas—’

‘Italian?’ Said eye-talian, in the harsh yap of a pureblood New Yorker. Arthur’s been to York, the original, the ‘Old York’, perhaps. Roman walls and bulky longcoats and hats so bowed they hid a lady’s eyes. Arthur has always said that New York would be favorable to the old, if only there weren’t so many Americans in it. ‘You mean this was a hit?’

‘No.’ He’s never considered that the Vargases might be tangled in gang activity. But no, mafia politics was not the cause of this. ‘A crime of passion.’

Beady eyes lift to the ceiling. ‘Always is with you freaks. Okay.’ He lights a cigarette but doesn’t offer one to Arthur. ‘Take it from the top.’

 

The Unicorn. Snugly in the middle as far as venues for the ‘Fag Balls’ goes, not as decadent as the Hamilton Lounge but far cleaner than the dives in the Bronx. Room for a few hundred people in the showroom, cushioned seats near the ceiling for the posh straights and so on down to the benched working class who were more likely to be drawn onstage to dance or sing along with the performers or follow crooked fingers to the back rooms for some hush-hush debauchery. All of it is illegal, of course, from the smuggled drinks to the powdered drugs to the sheer queerness of everyone keen to entertain. The stamping swingers and feathered flappers could be found in any club, but here another layer is added to the scandal. These young women don’t only cut their hair short, bind their chests flat, and show skin for fat cats and sugar daddies. They’re also not women at all—that is, not most of them.

Edelstein on piano, as always. Offstage, Arthur watches him shuffle his scales. The pages are dog-eared at the bottoms, to ease turning. ‘All the money I make,’ he lamented once, ‘and I can’t hire a page-turner.’ Trying to start a row, or just boasting. Arthur’s never had much patience for artistic types. (‘Isn’t that what we are? Artists?’ Francis puzzled, amused. ‘No,’ Arthur said, licking strawberry juice off his lover’s fingers if he recalls correctly. ‘We’re a different species entirely.’)

He sees Antonio out there, the frontman of his perpetual quartet: his twin brother, only distinguished by the long tail of hair, and their two pets, Lovino and Feliciano. Brothers for brothers. None of them are looking Arthur’s way. He watches Sebastião lift a cigarette to his mouth; his fist is full of rings and rubies, and Arthur shivers at the memory of it squeezing his—

‘Ready to go?’ Francis is no longer he but she, in satin pumps and peach chiffon. It’s gathered about the legs such that one is never quite sure what he glimpses under there, though all the pansies have been plucked and tucked for the occasion. The lips are the darkest thing about them all tonight; even Arthur’s mouth is the red of blood, dark with the words he’ll soon be belting. This is, in essence, the appeal for the ‘appreciators’ here: no one is afraid to break the rules, Arthur even less so.

‘Yeah.’ Arthur doesn’t meet the blue eyes. He knows what hurt looks like in them by now. He’s sick to death of it. He’s the victim in this situation, not the sluttish vixen he thought he could trust. Only moments ago he found the flowers someone left on the bureau in the dressing room. Violets, the lesbians’ carnation, and a card tucked between the stems: _You don’t deserve him._ From the faceless keeper that has been stealing Francis’s heart away, string by bloody string.

(‘I know who they’re from,’ Arthur snarled. ‘I know they’re from one of your damned _michetons_.’ But Francis just shook his head wearily as he secured his blond wig. ‘You know nothing. I don’t even know who they’re from. No one knows anything.’ This last with a sorrowful sigh. Arthur tore up the card and left the pieces to be swept up by the longer skirts of the opera queens.)

The overheads go off and the footlights spark on. The voice of God booms through the cavernous showroom. Arthur has never met the owner or ringmaster of this shameless circus, nor is he certain if there are multiple managers or if it all falls on the shoulders of one man the performers simply know as Our Good Host.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ cries the sonorous entity, ‘the esteemed Unicorn Hall presents the foremost guisers and downright queerest lover duo of our time, the backward Bonnie and Clyde, our own bulldagger King Arthur and his precious pansy princess, Lulu!’

Out they go, lit by blinding spotlights that reek of carbon, immediately awash in applause and hoots. Arthur tips his hat to them all and Lulu—Francis gone now, vanished as soon as there are men to please—smiles, waves, curtsies. Sticks out her tongue, shakes her skirts. Youthful and saucy and overly painted, that’s the character, the opposite of Francis’s experience and patience and natural beauty. (‘It’s _you_ I want,’ Arthur roared once, ‘not that fucking billboard you strut as!’)

The clapping fades. Lulu glances at him with a hopeful smile. He gives a frozen imitation, for the crowd more than her. Below, Edelstein’s fingers begin on the keys, starting high and rowdy. Showtime.

Arthur raises his arms, fingers curled to imitate a pair of pistols, faulty flesh mimicries of the real Colt in his suit jacket. The audience knows the words of this signature anthem, but they’ll let him have this first chorus all to himself.

 

_Bang away, Lulu, bang away good and strong_

_Oh, what’ll we do for a damn good screw_

_When our Lulu’s dead and gone?_

 

About face, forward march. He and Lulu switch places on the stage, tapping around each other with stiff spines, arms tight to the sides to make any Irish dancer proud. He can feel the grins of the crowd, stronger the farther up you go. Of course all those bankers and doctors love this. The poor bastards can’t drink, can’t fuck, can’t even listen to good music—why wouldn’t they find some solace in watching a dame dressed as a man sing this crude, churlish tune while the namesake prances about mugging and giggling as if she actually has bosoms to flash?

Edelstein glances over his shoulder. Arthur ignores him. All three of them know the routine by heart; they don’t need nods and checks. It goes the same way every time, hitchless. What could go wrong?

 

_Some girls work in offices, some girls work in stores_

_But Lulu works in a hotel with forty other whores_

_Oh, Lordy_

 

Harlem was Francis’s idea. The gay scene in England was just too smothered and secretive; they wanted to go somewhere they could shout out and have others shout back. Berlin was apparently the most indulgent—Arthur could attest to that, Germans were positively lewd behind closed doors—but neither of them spoke the language, and besides that, Europe was ‘cramped’ according to Francis. ‘Let’s go somewhere with a little fresh air,’ he insisted. Which was most definitely not New York, but that’s where they landed and that’s where they stayed. They briefly entertained the idea of one day going to San Francisco, Francis remarking that they were fond of Frenchies there and ‘they say you can’t throw a stone without hitting a restaurant that serves frog legs’, as if that was a great selling-point.

What little money they had left after their transatlantic exodus went into a tenement with a leaky ceiling and creaky hinges. America was significantly happier than England after the war, or perhaps America was always this way. Jobs were not difficult to find—factories were always cropping up to produce this or that new appliance, and thus people were always needed to tap nails and turn screws—but for performers it was, as usual, rather bleak. ‘Ya gotta know somebody’ was what they were told, in the increasingly grating Noo Yawk accent. ‘We ought to get a foot in the door, then,’ Arthur said while Francis fretted on the lumpy sofa. Arthur secured employment backstage at a club—not the Unicorn, a boring one for gandy dancers who wanted to get soused and kiss ugly girls in the alley—but Francis floated between jobs without anything ever sticking.

Still, for the first few months, they were happy. They ate ‘freshly caught’ fish and chips that wounded Francis’s Parisian soul and they whistled old ditties while they scrubbed black off the bathroom tiles and they made love with enough vigor to make both the next-door and downstairs neighbors batter the walls. This was before the creation of Arthur and Lulu. They were, on paper, Francois Louis Pierre Bonnefoi and Alice Eleanora Kirkland. Good enough people, more or less. Happy enough people.

Nothing lasts forever.

 

On the stage, Lulu crosses herself, fingers lingering on the slight poke of each nipple just long enough to make the droolers whistle. Who’s been touching there, making her moan while Arthur sleeps? He clasps his hands behind his back so tight his nails redden his skin, chanting with the solemnity of a benediction.

 

_Lulu got religion; she had it once before_

_She prayed to Christ with the priest while they did it on the floor_

_Oh, Lordy_

 

Neither of them was a believer. It wasn’t the done thing, for their sort. It was the white picket fence folks who went to church in their Sunday best, little boys and girls in white socks and neat haircuts. For men who never cursed in front of women, and women who never stayed out after dark. They knew, almost instinctively, they were not welcome. But soon it was proven.

Their building wasn’t much, but it was dear. It held all their worldly possessions, which when they first arrived could fit in a trunk but had now expanded to the tiny domestic details: a half-moon rug beneath the kitchen sink, butterfly wallpaper in pastel colors that Francis had painstakingly cut to fit each drab wall, a lovely blue bird of glass they hung in the window so the morning sun sent cerulean glinting across the room. And they had Mrs. Kirkland’s doilies, her mockery of a going-away gift to the couple. ‘Ought to burn them,’ Arthur muttered. Francis put them on each little table and chair anyway. ‘They lighten the room,’ he said in defense.

It wasn’t them that sparked the fire. They suspected it was the couples who moved in to the lower tenements, the basement dwellers who dealt in drugs and skin. Pansies, though most of them were large, rough men neither Arthur nor Francis would have dared disrespect. The church got wind of the goings-on, and without proof to bring to the overworked constables, they took manners into their own holy hands. As a consequence, one day Arthur and Francis came home from a pleasant dinner to find their building savaged by flames. People, poor Blacks and Europeans mostly, wept and cursed on the pavement while across the street a congregation sang hymns and furiously quoted Leviticus. ‘Sodomites,’ they screeched, ‘bathe in eternal fire!’

Arthur held onto Francis’s arm. Neither of them said a word. They were weary of banks, after the war; they’d kept all their savings in a lockbox under the floor, just as they had at home. Gone. They returned the following day, after the fire had been put out, but there was nothing left. The building had fallen, collapsed in on itself, so there was only a pile of rubble and ash. Nothing recognizable. The blue bird was dead. Francis’s wrist was bruised.

‘We’ll get a new place then,’ Arthur said, firm. ‘This is but spilt milk.’

Francis was still crying over it. Arthur framed his face in his hands. ‘Don’t show weakness now. You’ll be eaten alive. You know better than this.’

It took a moment, but the blue eyes dried. He sniffled. ‘I’ll get a job.’

‘Yes,’ Arthur said, already adding up the hours he would need to replace what they’d lost. ‘You will.’

 

_Well Lulu had a baby, it was her pride and joy_

_She would have named it Lulu but the bastard was a boy_

_Oh, Lordy_

 

Not even a month after that, they had the scare. The monthly blood came an entire week late, and when it did come it was only a few spots. ‘Maybe you’re not eating enough,’ Francis suggested. Arthur didn’t even dignify it with a response, because of course he wasn’t eating enough. Neither of them were. All of their money—such as it was—went toward rent, because Arthur had refused to move to some place that would only burn down in a fortnight and that meant living beyond their means.

Francis was working now, as a whore. ‘No, no, it’s not like that,’ he protested, at first. ‘It’s different.’ But he was unable to describe how it was different. Arthur hadn’t wanted it to come to this. In truth, he hadn’t even considered his lover capable—or perhaps willing—to give himself over to strangers. Even in the beginning, he powdered his face and rouged his cheeks. ‘Anyone will pay for a molly.’ And that was the unfortunate truth: people preferred Lulu to Francis. Everyone did, even Francis himself, except Arthur.

This was when the Unicorn came into their lives. A stagehand position was offered and Arthur took it. He only needed to pitch a show to someone with power (the Jolly Host would hear through someone who heard from someone else, in the end) and take his place in the spotlight. But he and Francis hadn’t sung nor danced nor even whistled since the tenement burned. The light had left those blue eyes, and only donning gowns before he left each night seemed to make him happy.

‘I call her Lulu,’ he said one night as he fluffed his cheap wig. ‘After Louis.’

‘Franny was too subtle, then?’ Arthur didn’t get up from the bed. It seemed every time he got home Francis was on his way out.

‘Lulu is more beautiful.’ He turned to look at him. He was clean-shaven for the first time since they left the boat, his paint gorgeous as a portrait, his gown finer than any Arthur—Alice, then—had ever worn. It shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did: Lulu was lovelier than Alice would ever be.

‘Have you ever thought about starting a family?’ Francis asked one morning, perhaps a month after he’d introduced Lulu. Arthur still wasn’t used to waking up next to a man in a shift, their shared pillow half-colored with maquillage.

‘Of course not,’ Arthur said, even though he had. He had as soon as his monthly was late. The horror of the squalling mouth, always demanding. A little red demon torn from the unused womb. Hideous. The apartment was bad enough; a baby would ruin them.

‘Oh,’ Francis said.

That was the end of that.

 

_I wish I were a diamond on my Lulu’s hand_

_Then every time she helped herself I’d see the promised land_

_Oh, Lordy_

 

‘Let’s get married,’ Lulu said.

Arthur—and he was Arthur then, much of the time, he’d begun to devise this guise-self and borrow Francis’s trousers—shook his head. ‘No.’

Lulu pouted. She had lipstick only in a small heart at the center of her lips. ‘Why not?’

Marriage was almost as foolish as having children, in Arthur’s tired eyes. By day they were Francis and Alice, by night they were Lulu and Arthur. How could they ever marry, living these half-lives? Who would be groom, and who would be wife?

‘The paper isn’t important,’ Lulu protested. ‘What matters is the bond of it. It means we love each other.’

‘I don’t need it. You should know that by now. If you don’t, well.’ Arthur didn’t want to say anything too foul. Lulu was about to leave for the night. It galled Arthur, though he didn’t show it, that she made more with her arse than he did with actual hard work. Perhaps that was a sign of manhood, the fragility of pride. He suspected it of himself, even in those rather early days, that he was the sort who would wear the drag clothes even at home, after the audience had gone home. It wasn’t too dramatic; he already had the shorn hair, and he never wore paint, so it wasn’t too much of a leap to wear masculine clothing and spread his legs when he sat on the sofa.

It was night and day with Francis and Lulu. The wig, the shaving, the stockings and skirts, even corsetry. ‘I think it looks nice,’ she said, long fingers wrapped around her artificial waist. Arthur had seen her looking at herself in the mirror, and he wouldn’t admit to himself that the small glee in those blue eyes was precisely what he felt when he saw himself in tie and tails.

‘Why do you hate me?’ Lulu asked, one hand on her hip, pouting still.

‘I don’t hate Francis,’ Arthur said pointedly. It was true. This sprightly pig-tailed vision his lover became each night was eery to Arthur. Perhaps that was hypocritical of him. But Lulu had become like some third person living with them, stealing Francis away in the night and dropping sticky coins in the biscuit tin each morning. The perfume she wore and the smell of men on her disgusted Arthur, sweet and salty. He had to stifle a gag when she spooned him before dawn.

 

_My Lulu she’s a clean one, she always smells so nice_

_Sure she’s got the pox and warts, but she hasn’t any lice_

_Oh, Lordy_

 

Of course, no whore was clean. It was inevitable, but Arthur didn’t really think about it until he found the little spot. Not reddened, barely a different color than the rest of Francis, but slightly raised and firm when Arthur touched it. And, of course, he found it only after he’d spent plenty of time down there.

‘Damn it,’ he cried, reeling back. He lifted his hands, then used the hem of his abandoned chemise to wipe his lips and fingers. ‘Are you trying to infect me with your nasty fluxes?’

Francis sat up, alarmed. ‘No.’ He cocked his head to study the accused area. ‘I never noticed it. It doesn’t hurt. Maybe it’s harmless—’

‘Harmless up your arse.’ Arthur went straight to the bathroom, scrubbed his face until it was raw. He had no idea how such things worked, but he wasn’t taking any more chances than he already had. ‘I’m likely already plagued,’ he called, disgusted. ‘Now you and I both have been with all manner of filth.’

No response from the bedroom. Arthur went in to find him dressed again, but not in his usual pajamas. He was in one of Arthur’s—Alice’s, technically—nightgowns, with the waves of his original cheap wig hiding his face. He was growing out his hair, now, so he could wear it naturally when he went with fellows. Macs. Johns.

Arthur’s lip curled in revulsion. He bedded on the sofa, even though it made his back ache. He would not curl up with Lulu.

 

Onstage. Arthur is a fraction late, coming into the sixth verse. Edelstein glances over his shoulder; Lulu’s eyes stretch wide with concern as her feet skip merrily. Arthur’s smile is sour.

 

_Lulu had a sister who lived up on a hill_

_If she hadn’t died of syphilis, we’d be banging still_

_Oh, Lordy_

 

The first show at the Unicorn was a success. And the second, and the third. Arthur heard the song by chance, some old fool bawling _bang away_ as he swiped at an untuned guitar. There was no shortage of toothless bastards playing instruments on the streets, hoping for a bit of the green glorious. Arthur sped up the tune and enlisted Edelstein to put something together for it, which was an extravagance Arthur paid for in part with their future earnings. ‘And if the show doesn’t pay?’ the Austrian said, skeptical. Arthur scowled. ‘Then have me skinned and wear me as a coat. What have I got to lose?’ (A fair bit, as it would soon turn out.) It shut the skimp up, though. And he got his money, they all got their money. Francis was happy to be paid with his clothes on for once, and Arthur knew he was glad to be back on the stage again. They’d sung and danced a bit in London and very briefly in Paris, but it was never anything to shake a stick at. Now, though, they were getting somewhere.

‘You don’t have to sell it anymore,’ Arthur said, smiling over champagne after their fifth show. They fit right in with the gay drag crowd, and why shouldn’t they? They embodied it, more and more everyday. Something from nothing, with that extra shake of the hips.

Francis’s smile froze in hesitance. ‘Perhaps I should keep on. Just in case.’

Arthur nearly broke his glass against the table. ‘Why would you want to do that?’

They still hadn’t made love in months. They had thought Francis’s pox had cured itself when it disappeared after a month or so, but now it was back with a vengeance, a rash spreading furiously across his flesh. Arthur couldn’t imagine it was comfortable, but he never heard any complaint, never saw any winces. He never touched it himself, obviously, and he loved the damned frog; why would someone _pay_ to make love to him in such a state?

If they loved him, too. Arthur went cold with the epiphany. But not _him._ No. Someone loved Lulu.

Blue eyes squinted in a nervous smile. ‘You always say we should have a back-up.’

‘Yeah.’ Arthur swallowed the rest of his champagne. It burned like betrayal inside him.

Whoever it was, Lulu loved them back.

 

Arthur twirls Lulu around him. Her arms are cold to the touch beneath the satin gloves. In the crowd, Arthur spots the pair of brothers, Antonio and Sebastião, Lovino and Feliciano. The younger brothers look gleeful while the elder two are somber. Lovino outright glares, and Antonio’s eyes are fixated on Arthur. Though it’s impossible at this distance, he gets the intense sensation that Antonio is meeting his gaze.

 

_Now Lulu’s got two boy-friends, they are very rich_

_One’s the son of a banker, the other’s a son of a_ —

_Oh, Lordy_

 

A tiny part of Arthur did wonder, from the start, how easy it was for Francis to find people to lay. He was a handsome man and made a pretty woman, and he had no shortage of confidence, but was it really just as simple as jutting a hip on a street corner or stroking a hand down a brooksy’s arm?

As it turned out: yes.

Arthur knew the Spaniards from the Unicorn. Some nights they danced, others they only watched. They were indirectly involved in a lucrative business across the pond; born on the wrong side of the blanket, or so the rumors went, and paid to stay in America where no queries would be raised. Devilishly good-looking, and twins of course, to make it even worse. Arthur had only spoken a few words with them in the past, the most memorable on their birthday when Arthur foolishly stood them for drinks and he woke up three hours later under a table. That time, they had stopped on their way across the room to compliment Arthur on a show well-done (Lulu was elsewhere, disrobing with the other pansy queens).

This time, Arthur went straight to them. They had no entourage that night, no Italians or girls. Just Antonio and Sebastião with matching smirks as Arthur sat down between them, a cigarette in hand with no holder, a challenge in the set of his brows.

And it was between them he found himself a half hour later, in one of the dark chambers of the Unicorn’s haunches, prone on a golden chaise lounge while they claimed either end of him. He thought Antonio would take the honors but it was Sebastião who parted his thighs and forced his way rather clumsily inside. Antonio stared down into Arthur’s eyes with an almost soft smile on his lips; he eased Arthur’s jaw open with just a bit of pressure from his thumb. From there, it was the burning at his ass—he wasn’t risking pregnancy with Francis, he wasn’t risking it with these two—and the slippery thing in his mouth. It didn’t urge at his throat, didn’t bruise his lips. Just the pair of them, bronze and beautiful while he was like a crumpled cloth between them, shoved to and fro as they grew harder and harder until they were fucking their way straight through him and hollering curses in their luscious language and filling him with hot wet until the pot boiled over and he overflowed with a sound he had never made before.

Antonio grinned.

 

Now, into the chorus again, the final one. Lulu wags her hips, claps her hands above her head. She’s a few inches off her mark, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the look and the sound that matter; Arthur doesn’t need to hit anything. There’s nothing, after all, to hit it with.

 

_Bang away, Lulu, bang away good and strong_

_Oh, what’ll we do for a damn good screw_

_When our Lulu’s dead and gone?_

 

The crowd is chanting it now, right along with him. He draws it out, because the ones who’ve seen it before are grinning and the ones who haven’t yet will jump in their seats, or shout, or perhaps even faint dead away. Arthur delights in all of it, but tonight it’s something more. The shell of joy around this bright business has cracked, and the bitterness has got in. Ruined, just like everything else.

Edelstein must be feeling sentimental; his fingers chase each other across the keys one last time, so Arthur throws it back at him.

 

_Oh, what’ll we do for a damn good screw_

_When our Lulu’s dead and gone?_

 

From his jacket, Arthur withdraws the Colt. He aims it at Lulu, who throws up her hands in mock surprise. Arthur imagines the fiend who has taken his love from him, the mystery man she’d rather spend her time with— _is that what it is, I’m not man enough for you, well let me show you just what I can do_ —and pulls the trigger.

There’s the shot, the sound, the kick.

Blue eyes wide with shock.

The final twirl, the death dance.

Then down, down, down she goes.

 

The red rose.

 

No one realizes what’s happened, at first. Then it’s all-at-once utter pandemonium as people fly from their seats, pushing and shoving, no longer certain of their safety. There is no pack mentality, only selfishness as the creatures scream and rush the exits. Arthur stands frozen in place, in the spotlights with his dead lover. Yet somehow, in the swirls and whirls of frantic movement, he catches a single spot of stillness. He recognizes Antonio first, but he’s facing away, calling to his brother. It’s Lovino who’s staring at Arthur with those fiery eyes.

His lips move, and it’s as if Arthur is right before him, with his ear at the ready.

_I told you._

Then he’s gone, herded out by the Spaniard’s protective arm.

Arthur’s mind races. Told him? He’s never spoken to Lovino. What can he mean? And how has this happened? There are only blank cartridges in his gun, always. It’s done the same way every time. But it’s kept in the same space, too, backstage . . . anyone with half a brain could sneak back there, observe, and disrupt the natural order. Arthur would never notice. Didn’t, clearly. No checks. But why would Lovino, of all people, want to kill Francis? Lulu?

Oh.

The note. The shredded card.

_You don’t deserve him._

Not a loving message, perhaps, but a jealous threat.

But how can that be?

By the time the constables arrive, Arthur has shut his thoughts out. Shut everything out, in fact, except the fading warmth of Lulu, who he now cradles in his arms, stroking her hair with bloodied fingers. In the end, it takes both bobbies to pry him off the corpse. In the end, they find him guilty of murder once it gets out that both Alice and Francis have been unfaithful. (If only the evidence had not been torn into hateful pieces. A crime of passion, indeed.) In the end, it’s a different refrain the bulldaggers sing.

 

_Bang away, Arthur, bang away good and strong_

_You know it’s true, the least you could do_

_Now your Lulu’s dead and gone_

 

And the night cold lips kissed his temple even the angels bawled:

 

_Oh, Lordy._

  


_The End._


End file.
